Laura Marling’s time has come

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Britain’s neofolk scene made an unexpected splash on these shores with the recent breakthrough success of its flagship quartet Mumford & Sons.

Few Yanks probably saw that one coming, eh?

But now it’s time for the queen of the movement to be recognized: the wondrous, Sandy Denny-evocative Laura Marling, who once dated the Sons’ Marcus Mumford.

Her great “Alas, I Cannot Swim” debut was penned when she was only 17 years old. She just turned a wise old 21, and will released her lived-and-learned, loved-and-lost new third album, “A Creature I Don’t Know,” on Sept. 13. And it was recorded and produced by the go-to folk-rock maestro, Ethan Johns.

And if there’s any justice in the world, “Creature” should be Marling’s breakthrough.

It has lute-traditional delicacies (“Sophia,” “Rest In The Bed”), Leonard Cohen-ish processionals (“Night After Night,” “I Was Just A Card”) and Woody Guthrie-vitriolic folk-rock (“The Muse,” “All My Rage”).

“And Ethan is not only a great producer, but his dad Glyn Johns produced some of my favorite albums,” says Marling. “And the reason I started working with him on my last one (“I Speak Because I Can”) was because he was the only producer I’d ever heard of before I became a musician. And I had a lot of time to write and rehearse that second one, but I continued writing when I was waiting to record ‘I Speak,’ and when I finished there was an obvious change in the process and style. So these were the songs that just came when I’d finished writing the others, on a break, and this next batch of songs all seemed to work together.”